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Ok, I have a lot to get out on the subject. I want to explain my thoughts and start a discussion on fire warrior unit sizes.

I learned when playing mechanized eldar that taking minimum squad sizes to fit more transports ended up significantly reducing my overall firepower. GW did a pretty good job designing transports to be a good combination of firepower and transport related capabilities. Taking an empty transport, just for its offensive potential was not cost efficient in my experience. When i played with 5 or 6 dire avengers, that is really what it was... an empty transport.

I don't think that spending 70 points on 6x LD8 fire warriors, and then hoping that they never hit the table surface is wise. When you do that 3x times, you end up with 210 points spent on units that you hope don't interact with the game at all. I think that if you invested another 180 points, you turn those units into tangible assets. I've had some play experiences that make me comfortable saying this. And some players of 40k that i really respect have agreed with me at least in theory.

It takes generalship to utilize the units without risking their loss. their certainly will always be a right time and a wrong time to deploy them, but i prefer the larger unit.

I'm expecting to see a lot of people preferring the 6man units. A lot of the advice given on tau list construction revolves around 'not wasting points on an underpowered unit'. I don't think that suggestion is totally unfounded, but I see it more that, since you are forced to invest in the 70 point nut. You should probably fill it out to make it functional. I disagree with the 6 man camp, but I'm not closed minded about their approach and would certainly welcome discussion.


Here's a few things I'd like you to keep in mind for the discussion.

At 10 points per model, fire warriors certainly are not designed to be a throw-away unit. i do believe they are over-costed, however.

All discussion about firewarriors should include discussions about markerlights. Firewarriors can be BS5, their guns can ignore cover, the unit can inflict a pinning test with a massive modifier. Obviously all at a cost. They can't do that independently.

Please don't be hyperbolic about their damage output. 12 strength 5 hits in a round of shooting, completely unassisted is significant. (a 4x heavy bolter dev squad at that range can muster 8 strength 5 hits and 8 strength 4 hits. Just slightly more infantry wounds caused. And they couldn't move before delivering. Nor are they a scoring unit, or as cheap.) 20 strength 5 hits, that only allow a 6+ cover save is certainly eye-popping, although it does consume four very expensive markerlight hits. In some cases, fire warriors can certainly be the most desired damage output to consume markerlights.

I'd love to hear your thoughts... discuss away.

The problem I tend to have with firewarriors is that they tend not to do anything well enough. When you can get 10 kroot for 70 points I tend to find myself always selecting kroot over firewarriors. In fact I've really gotten to the point that the only reason I select firewarriors is to get a devilfish unless I'm trying to form a gunline.

You bring up markerlights, and you are right in that they can boost bs or reduce cover. However, there is generally only so many markerlights available to an army and I'm ususually using them to make sure my rail gun shots don't recieve cover saves.

I've tried the gun lines, and they work, to a point. 48-60 fire warriors can really attack an army from range. The main problem: most armies don't stay at range for long.

To get 12 firewarriors at LD7 it'll cost me 120 points, if I don't want them to run I'm being forced to pick up shadowsun. An ugraded fire warrior still only has ld 8 resulting in a 1/4 chance of failing a moral check. Now if I set up my fire warriors far back to avoid assaults this will result in me being run of the table once they fail the test.

Putting fire warriors in area terrian helps, but it can depend on your table set up and deployment.

For the 130 it costs me for a full 12 man fire warrior squad I can run my fav Kroot config of 10 kroot and 10 kroot hounds. While the kroot don't have range of the Tau and strength they make up for it with the infiltrate, fieldcraft, and the hounds. A 3+ coversave in some cover helps, along with the assault potential of the hounds. Plus with infiltrate I have a better chance of placing the kroot in cover and get them in range of the guns.

Until the points for a fire warrior drops I don't think they are worth taking. Unless your going for a Mech Tau force & in that case you keep to the minimum amount.

I just bought a 2500 pt. Tau army and have been facing the same question.

This has been my experience at 2000 pts. 10 to 8 FW seems to be the best amount. I do run a mech list with at lest 2 devilfish. 8 FW are good for the fact of saving upgrade pts for your vehicles,but for full rapid fire potential at 2000 pts 10 FW squads are working well for me. 12 FW just cost to much IMO. If you plan on using the Fish of Fury tactics I would at lest bring 10 per squad and this also,in combination with markerlights,makes it worth spending ML on FW.

Here's a tactic I used on Space Marines on Sunday in a 2000 pt. battle. Two devilfish with 10 FW a piece followed closely by two piranhas with fusion blasters. Pull up on your target,turn the noses of the d-fish's into each other /\ then pull the two piranhas on either side ^/\^ then jump the FW's out and shoot up that ML squad. All that skimmer action buys you enough time to get out if you didn't completely destroy the enemy.

The magic number is 9.

Statistically that's how many firewarriors it takes to down a Space Marine. Also it's just enough to force people to kill three firewarriors instead of two.

I run three squads of ten in three warfish.

Edit: Kill three firewarriors to force a morale test instead of two.

Interesting stuff so far.

Both Orchewer and Blackarandras seem to be using firewarriors as a tool rather than hiding small units in devilfish. That is heartening, I was expecting to hear more from the 6 man unit camp.

Asugradinwa, I think its interesting that you brought kroot into the discussion. I will be experimenting with a single kroot unit of varying size over the next couple months. In my experience so far in 5th edition, they do well in environments with no assault units, but they have underperformed for my group when facing units with assault capability. I think they have an edge over the fire warriors for the "home" unit. If you aren't planning on buying a transport for a scorer, they seem to be slightly better off, with essentially the same save, possibly one pip better based on the table, and a very modest counter-assault capability.

however, since I know you take one firewarrior unit in every list you play, I'd like to hear what size you run it at. I'm inferring from your statment that you run 6. Possibly even at leadership 7.

Kroot to an extent can fill Firewarrior's anti-infantry role. 10 Kroot shooting at a marine squad is more effective than the equivalent of 7 firewarriors, but when all your troops don't have an armour save, I don't know how long they're sticking around.

The reason a Tau gun-line used to be effective was because 60-ish S5 shots a turn *hurts*. But now that every thing in the Emperor's green earth has fleet, infiltrate, outflank or deepstrike-assault-bahahaha-death, firewarriors have to be mobile now. However, you still need that anti-infantry in your list.

I'd definitely say between 8 and 10. 8 if I'm skimping for points, 10 if I want a solid unit. Usually I'll upgrade to the Shas'ui and knife, because the ability to regroup under half is very important for scoring units. Always with a Devilfish - I think FW without a transport are dead FW, though they'll usually steal said transport from the Pathfinders.

Unless I'm deploying my shadowsun firing line (48-72 firewarriors + shadowsun) I try to take as few fire warriors as possible.

Outside of the fire line I really only have two builds of fire warriors: 6 in a devil fish or 18 in three devilfish. These are warfish with targeting arrays, disruption pods, Smart missiles and multitrackers.

I've tried the fish of furry with devilfish carring full fire warrior squads in 5th and it just doesn't have the same kick that it did in 4th.

A group of 12 fire warriors rapid firing into a MEQ has a 72.61% chance of causing 3 or fewer unsaved wounds per shooting phase. The stats get much better against armies with a 4+ or 5+ save, however they generally have numbers to withstand the shooting. Full squads are not worth it IMO.

For me the trick to kroot is always including a large number of kroot hounds. Unless you are playing against a high INT army with grenades you'll be striking first with 20-30 attacks.

Dire avengers seem to dish out more damage for the points at range. Plus they can disembark in the >12" range which is huge for avoiding assault. Thus large units in a mech eldar list I think definitely makes sense. Also as a firing platform (anti infantry). I would probably say the 7 str5 attacks at bs4 are better than 6 str 6 (3 tl, 3 non) bs 3 shots from a serpent.

Since firewarriors have to be within 12 to shoot it makes it a lot more dangerous. They can get assaulted easier, are easier to rapid fire on, everythingis tougher.

If you are taking 4 units of warriors in fishes as your troops. Dropping to minimum 6 instead of 8 or nine gives you an extra pirahna for tank hunting (which you need if running all fish and heads). Runing two at 6, unloading them and then shooting at the same target but from different sides means that your opponent can only kill 6 fire warriors, not your whole squad of 10 or 12.

At 1850 I'm running 6 devilfish's (4 warriors, 2 pathfinders) 3 rail heads and 2 fusion pirahna's and the obligatory shas'el. I have 35 infantry (24 fire warriors, 10 pathfinders, and 1 crisis suit). I don't see the extra 8 fire warriors as being worth more than a pirahna.

As another pure mech player, I stick with 6 fw per fish, and don't even bother with the 'ui.

The way I look at it is that it costs 60 points to make a warfish into a scoring unit--and I don't mind that at all. If the battle is going according to plan, the passengers never even crack the hatch. Otherwise, I might drop the occasional FOF, but that really only comes up every third game or so.

I didn't realize it until recently, but the low leadership of kroot+hounds can sometimes be an asset instead of a liability.

You pretty much don't need to worry about them sticking in combat...and I5 gives them a halfway decent chance of not being swept (and even if they do, hopefully they got in their rapid fire shots before being charged). Then you hammer whatever charged them.

They're a speed bump, an infiltrator, and a scoring unit.

Firewarriors...I think once you have three devilfish with firewarriors in them, then it makes more sense to go with bigger squads and use them offensively, with squad size of 9 or 10. You need two devilfish working together to have much of a chance of preventing charges unless you just ream the assault unit nearby, which won't always happen. in 4e it wasn't as big a deal if this didn't work out or if you got charged, but now that you need to keep the troops alive for scoring it becomes a huge risk and therefore even more planning and playing it safe comes into play. Since you can't really afford to let them die, and you have a limited number of them...risking them becomes scarier. 10 FW are not significantly more survivable than 6 in the open.
Perhaps if you have 4+ scoring units (3 FW and 1 or 2 kroot squads for example) you can do more with them, but then you've got less other stuff.

I've been playing a lot of farsight recently and my current Farsight list only has 3 min sized squads. I just can't find a way to afford the points and I have other units I'd rather use markerlights for in almost every case.

The running theme in this thread seems to be that a fish of some description is mandatory, and I agree. From six (ld7) bods in a fish as a starting point, what do the extra bods actually add?
1. The ability to reliably deploy outside of the transport as a firing line and take a turns shooting.
2. Double the shots on a FoF.

I havent been brazen enough to put part one to the test in this edition. 12 Firewarriors at range with markerlight support is pretty good against orc hordes and reasonable against Meq's. The problem being that they can't take the return shots and are very vunerable to fast assaulters/drop pods or the like.

As to point two. How do you guys manage to get all of your bods in range for the 12 FW FoF? I can just about fit 6 around a side hatch, keeping my fish front armour to the enemy. The only way I can envisage 12 bods getting to fire is by spinning the fish to broadside the enemy and dropping the FWs out the rear and side hatch.

Shep wrote:I don't think that spending 70 points on 6x LD8 fire warriors, and then hoping that they never hit the table surface is wise. When you do that 3x times, you end up with 210 points spent on units that you hope don't interact with the game at all. I think that if you invested another 180 points, you turn those units into tangible assets.

But they do interact with the game- they score to win it! Adding more bods doesn't improve this ability. 180pts is a railhead or a crisis squad- something that can have an shooting effect during every turn. That 180 spent in FWs becomes situational, rarely getting to shoot more than once a game.

I'm currently a 6 bods in a warfish man, but I can see the utility of a bigger squad. The problem being that at 1500pts (what I generally play) I can generally find a better use for the 60pts (or 120).

I favor 9-man with Shuas'ui & Bonding units. Most of the time, they don't leave the (mandatory) Warfish, but on tthe occasions that they do (or for a FoF against Hordes) the three extra Pulse rifles are worth it. Plus it gives them a slight survival boost compared to minimum sized squads.